


Charge you with the rescue blues

by morganya



Category: Bandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Police, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-01-03
Updated: 2009-01-03
Packaged: 2017-10-20 07:01:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/210027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morganya/pseuds/morganya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You look like you're good at your job." A cop AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Charge you with the rescue blues

Travis hears the shouting when he's halfway up the stairs. It mainly sounds like basic angry-drunk talk, but he shoots a look at Gabe anyway, just so they both know to be prepared. Gabe nods at him.

Gabe bangs on the apartment door loudly and the shouting stops. Gabe knocks again.

The door opens and Travis smells the beer before he even sees the guy's face. Drunk but not too drunk to realize there's a problem, he looks from Gabe to Travis with an _oh shit_ face.

"Hi there," Gabe says. "Mind if we come in?"

"Yeah, okay," and the door opens all the way and they're inside.

"I'm Officer Saporta," Gabe says. "This is Officer McCoy. You've got the whole apartment building in a state, bro. What's going on?"

The apartment looks only slightly trashed; there's a broken lamp lying by the wall, an overturned chair, but the rest just looks like normal mess. No signs of paraphernalia.

"My wife and me – we were arguing."

"Where is your wife?"

"Kitchen, I think."

"Mind if I go talk to her?" Travis says. "Get this straightened out?"

The guy shakes his head.

He goes into the kitchen and leaves Gabe to work his magic. They have a routine they usually follow in these cases; Travis talks to the wives and Gabe talks to the husbands. It's worked so far.

The woman in the kitchen looks drunk, but not as drunk as her husband. She's washing the dishes. She looks up and smiles nervously at him.

"Hello, Officer."

"Hey," Travis says. "So what's going on?"

Her explanation is a little confused, probably because she's drunk and nervous: they were drinking, she started arguing, or he did, they started shouting, no, nothing else happened, this has never happened before. He hears Gabe in the living room trying to do the same thing he is, telling the guy, "Yo, my first ex-wife could tell you some stories, man. Sometimes you fight, you don't know what you're doing, and it gets out of hand real fast, you know?"

Travis would bet a month's pay that someone threw a punch, probably the husband, but the wife won't budge on that point and Gabe isn't getting anywhere either, from what he can hear. He finally just nods and advises her to be careful. All he can really do is issue a warning about the noise.

"Marriage," Gabe says once they're back in the squad car and comparing notes so they can get the report filled out. "Jesus."

"She was lying about something," Travis says. "Don't know what, but she had the lying face."

"So did he." Gabe lights a cigarette. "Love is such a corrupter."

*****

He takes the train home, carrying his uniform. It doesn't matter what he's been doing, the uniform always seems like it's going to stand up and walk home with him at the end of the day, the polyester sending out visible Pigpen smell rays, and he hates doing laundry but he doesn't really have a choice.

When he's halfway to his apartment, he sees the kid hanging off the railing in front of the building, and doesn't know whether to laugh or roll his eyes. It's the same kid who's been hanging around for the past month. He always claims he's either waiting for a friend or a bus or a pony or some shit, and he's a shitty liar. Travis has seen the kid's mugshot – Wentz down in Vice hauled him in for soliciting not too long ago, but the charge didn't stick.

He doesn't know what the kid's doing hanging out in this neighborhood; tricks are few and far between here, and he'd do better business downtown. Still the kid – William – keeps showing up by his apartment.

"Hello, William," Travis says wearily.

"Officer," William says. He has a soft voice with an accent that was probably Chicago not too long ago. He sounds like someone who's trying to talk like a broadcast journalist.

"I'm going to ask you the same question I've been asking for however long it's been," Travis says. "Do you have a damn _death wish_ , working outside my window? Really."

"Uh, I'm not working," William says, like he thinks Travis is dumb. "I'm standing. Can't a guy stand?"

"I'd rather you stood somewhere where I don't have to drag your ass in," Travis says. "How many times have we had this conversation, William?"

"But you haven't arrested me," William says. "Because I'm just standing."

"I've been catching bad guys all day, William. I'm tired. I swear to God, if I look out my window and catch you working –"

"I'm _not_ ," William says. He looks at Travis with wide brown eyes, too innocent. "I like the atmosphere here."

"He likes the atmosphere, he says. What kind of atmosphere are you looking for?"

William shrugs. "I don't know. Like, urban atmosphere."

"You're something else," Travis says. "I'm goin' inside."

"Get ready to do it all over again?" William says.

"What else?" Travis says.

In his apartment, he puts on Curtis Mayfield and has a drink, cool drinks of scotch that warm all the way down. When he finishes the first glass, he pours another and then goes over to the window, stepping over his half-finished canvases, and peers outside at the street. He sees the back of William's head and the slope of narrow shoulders, spindly arms leaning on the railing. It only takes a second, but then William turns around and meets his eyes. He waves and grins, and it's only the flash of slightly crooked teeth and the almost shy glance that keeps it from being a completely wiseass move. Travis rolls his eyes, and William shrugs, and starts walking away.

*****

"Monaco's is a shitty bar," Gabe tells him. "I mean, I'm not picky, I'll go anywhere and have a drink, but I'm not gonna deal with some asshole sitting next to me and trying to get laid by quoting David Hume at some waitress who just doesn't give a shit, you know?"

Travis passes him his coffee. "You sure _you're_ not the guy spouting off philosophy crap? I wouldn't put it past you."

"Please. You should know that I quote fucking D'Angelo when I'm drunk."

He's not the first partner Gabe's had. Gabe used to pull shifts with this guy Gilbert, but he put in for a transfer because he said Gabe talked too much. Which is true, but if Travis has to spend an eight-hour shift mostly just riding around in the car, he'd much rather have some vocal accompaniment than silence.

His lieutenant once took him aside and confided that he'd never expected Gabe and him to stick, just going from the personnel files. Gabe's father is some crazy-smart doctor out in the Jersey suburbs who brought Gabe over from Uruguay when he was four so they could find the American Dream. To hear Gabe tell it, he spent his whole childhood being groomed to be the Surgeon General, or a Supreme Court Justice, "I guess because after the divorce, he didn't have anything else to believe in, other than me and my brothers."

Gabe almost made it, or at least he makes it sound that way. Three years of college with a 4.0 GPA, a Philosophy major with an eye on law school. And then at the beginning of his senior year, he dropped out and joined the academy. "My dad was _pissed_."

He's asked Gabe about it a couple of times, sometimes when he was drunk and sometimes when he was sober, about why he gave it up and became a beat cop. Gabe has a few different answers, but the one Travis believes in the most was the one he gave after a couple too many beers in some shitty dive bar, that "I realized that everything I was looking for my whole life was bullshit. I was acting like everything was all laid out and it all made sense, but then I realized that fuckin' nothing makes sense, you know? We live in chaos. You can't regulate chaos. I'm just trying to keep it at bay for a while, you know?"

They've been partners for three years. They've crashed on each other's couches and bitched about hangovers together. He's had Seders with Gabe's family, Gabe's spent Christmases with his. He thinks, sometimes, that he knows Gabe better than either of his wives did.

He's told tales of his own misspent youth to Gabe, and Gabe always laughs hysterically at them, but he always wonders if there's a little envy in the laughter, too.

*****

It wasn't a bad day, but it was a long day, long enough that he feels justified in stopping off at the bar after his shift. The booze is cheap and the music is decent; he's been there often enough so he knows the regular faces but not the names.

He's woozy when he leaves, just enough so that he knows he'll sleep well tonight, and cheerfully punchy. He whistles to himself on the way back.

"You look like you've been having a d-debauch," someone says behind him.

Travis stops whistling and looks up, keys in his hand. William is sauntering towards him, hands shoved in the pockets of a worn green hoodie, bony knees poking out of his jeans. He looks like any other college kid on the way home from class. Travis almost didn't recognize him at first.

"Hello, William," he says. "Making your rounds?"

"Just strolling," William says. "How are the bad guys?"

"I'll just give them a call and ask," Travis says. "What the fuck you wearing, anyway? You look like a skinny turtle."

William looks offended. "No, I _don't_."

"Yeah, you do," Travis says, grinning. "All wrapped up. Little face pokin' out."

"I have a cold, for God's sake. I'm not gonna walk around in this weather without a jacket."

"Your mama taught you well," Travis says. William scowls at him, and it may be the drink talking but it seems pretty funny right now. "So you're out here, trying to catch pneumonia, instead of staying home and -"

"Charles Bukowski," William says, like that explains everything. "Charles Bukowski never stayed home. He went out and _lived life_."

"He _drank_ life," Travis corrects. "You planning on doing that too?"

William looks up at him. "Well, I don't know, it's still pretty early."

Something about the face peering out at him from the folds of green fabric strikes him funny. Travis leans over and flips the edge of the hoodie with the tip of one finger. "Hey, pretty sure that's harassment, Officer," William says, but he's smiling, eyes crinkling at the corners.

"Shit, I better pull my act together," Travis says. "You're only getting the drunk-Travis experience right now, don't expect a replay of it."

"Travis?" William says. "That's your name?"

"None other," Travis says, but he kind of knows that he's gone too far right about now. He unlocks the front door.

"See you around, then?" William says.

"Do I have a choice?" Travis says, and goes inside.

*****

"Check it out," Gabe says, pointing out the car window. For a second Travis thinks he's noticed something, which would be kind of a relief after two hours without a call from dispatch, but Gabe's just pointing at the construction outside, which looks like some sort of roadwork.

"Such bullshit," Gabe says with an exasperated sigh. "What's that cost? Couple hundred thousand? More? There's so much time and energy spent on shit that's inconsequential."

"Cost of living in the world, dude," Travis says. "Modern progress."

"I don't believe in progress," Gabe says. "Not with us doing it. You know what all the trappings of civilization add up to?"

He's warming up for what's probably going to be forty-five minutes of Gabe on a tear about something. Travis puts his chin in his hand and smiles, waiting for him to continue.

"Everything is just an attempt to convince ourselves we're not animals," Gabe says. "Look at dogs, okay, or polar bears or foxes or some shit. They don't mess around with the bullshit we do. We're the only ones who convince ourselves that there's something better."

"You don't think dogs want a nice place to sleep?" Travis says. "Comfy place to lie there licking their asses?"

"Yeah, but they don't fuckin' get complexes about it. They're purer about it. They want to eat, they want to sleep, they want to fuck something. They don't say, 'Oh, I can't fuckin' lick my nuts until I get, like, a better understanding of myself' or whatever. Fuckin' humans fucked that up."

"We fuck a lot of things up," Travis says.

"This is what I've been saying," Gabe says. "You know what would be the only real indication that we've gotten somewhere as a species? When we're totally fuckin' off the planet and the only things left are robots."

"Gabe, stop it with the robots."

"Fuck you, this is a great idea, you just don't know it yet. There's no bullshit with machines. They just do what they're programmed to do and don't fucking rob a store because they need crack or go out and find some hooker because they have a shitty marriage. It's fucking simple and pure, like it was intended to be. Dude, being a robot is a sweet life, I'm telling you."

"I don't know," Travis says. Gabe has this fucking obsession with robots, like a mad scientist or Travis' six year old nephew, and it was kind of funny the first five times Travis had to listen to Gabe's Tales of the Robot Revolution, but he doesn't really think he has the attention span for more than that. "I mean, yeah, maybe the kid who keeps trying to hustle johns outside my building wouldn't have to worry about assholes picking him up, but –"

He sees Gabe's ears perk up at the hint of gossip and immediately regrets saying anything. "What? You've got, like, a personal hooker?"

"You're a damn pervert," Travis says. "You say personal like I'm going back to Flatbush every night and –"

"Hey, what you do on your off time is your business, bro. What's he doing in _Flatbush_? He's going to get his ass jumped."

"I keep telling him that," Travis says. "He thinks I'm some dumb cop. I don't know, the kid's a risk-taker."

"He a runaway, you think? Maybe you can check the database at the station, see if anything's been registered with Missing Persons."

"How'd we get on this subject, anyway?"

" _You_ brought him up. Hookers on the brain."

"Fuck you. He's too old to be a runaway. Looks about nineteen. Probably older than that."

"Looks like he made quite an impression, Richard Gere."

"Yeah, because he's a pain in my ass. I want to go home and drink in peace, not wait for some dumb suburban kid to come wandering up and mouth off."

Gabe smirks at him.

"Don't start."

"I'm not judging, bro."

"I haven't done anything _to_ judge."

"Hey, we all do risky shit. The job makes you nuts, you gotta unwind."

"Knock it off," Travis warns.

Gabe sulks in silence for a minute. Travis looks out the window, almost praying he sees someone driving erratically or breaking into something.

"I don't think I'll ever get married again," Gabe says. "Too many ways to fuck up."

Travis grunts.

"You know that Wentz from Vice is totally _shtupping_ that little redhead down in Forensics. It's a wonder they haven't gotten some kind of warning."

One of the things he likes about Gabe is the way he can shift from ranting about the state of the world to busting Travis' balls to gossiping about everybody else without seeming to notice the topic change. He expects he'll get another grilling about William sometime in the near future, but at least he'll have some time to prepare.

*****

"I'm beginning to think you're following me," he tells William as he's dragging up the stairs and William's making his approach down the street. "Why is it that we're always in the same place?"

William shrugs and flicks his hair out of his face. "M-maybe we just keep similar hours."

"Uh-huh," Travis says. "You know this is a shitty place to work, right, William? You're going to run into some bad people one night, and I don't think the pretty face is going to be much help to you there."

"You can say that about anything, though," William says. "I could tell _you_ you're going to run into bad people sometime. And I think that's more likely to happen to you."

"Probably," Travis says. "I might be a little more well-defended, though."

"We're adults," William says. "No harm in taking a chance now and then, right?"

"Depends," Travis says. "How many chances are you taking, William?"

William scowls at him. "I'm not going to, like, close myself off to new experiences or something that might teach me something because they're _risky_. You know what Jack Kerouac said? He said, 'The only real people are the ones who never say a commonplace thing, but burn like roman candles.' And that's what, you know, I want."

"Was that what he wrote?" Travis asks. "It's been a while since I read that."

William's face changes from defensive to approving in a split second. He's really, really shitty at hiding what he's feeling, Travis thinks. "You don't look like someone who –"

"Reads?"

William stutters something unintelligible, pushes another piece of hair behind his ear. "No, I – I mean, not like someone who read Kerouac, I mean."

"I'm a multi-faceted motherfucker."

There's William's crooked teeth smile again. "I try not to pre-judge people, you know, so I didn't mean –"

"First impressions say a lot," Travis says. "Sometimes."

"Yeah," William says doubtfully. He has this semi-awkward way of standing, like someone used to being looked at but wary of what's behind the attention. Travis wonders if that's the allure, beyond the sharp brown eyes and long legs, the implied _I might, maybe_.

"How long have you been in the city, William?"

"Uh, I don't – I'm not like a native or anything yet."

"You and the rest of us. Chicago, right?"

"How – just outside Chicago, I guess. Quite uninteresting, really. I like New York more."

"Uh-huh."

"Heard the accent, right?"

"Here and there."

"I guess you never really get away from where you come from," William says.

"Not really," he says. "See you, William."

"Farewell, _Officer_ ," William says softly, and glances at him quickly, gauging the response.

"Had to take the chance to be a wiseass, didn't you?" Travis says, and unlocks the door.

Going up the stairs, he realizes that he can't imagine William six months, a year from now – right now he's new, still innocent enough to make people treat him kindly, but that never lasts. He's seem a lot of kids like this: either they manage to survive through luck or will and their eyes go hard and empty, or, more often, they wind up broken. Most of the time, they just disappear.

*****

He knows that things could have turned out differently for him. He knows how easy it is to just go under. When he was a kid, back in Geneva, there really wasn't much for him. His father was bouncing from marriage to marriage, too busy working his ass off to really make sure Travie didn't get into trouble, and his mother was trying, sometimes successfully, to stay sober long enough to bring him up right. Pops used to tell him, _You can be anything you want_ , but he wasn't a stupid kid, and all around him were people who never got what they wanted, so they settled for what they had.

There are whole sections of his past that blend together, sometimes because he was too stoned to remember and sometimes because of the unending sameness of every day. The cops in town knew him but he was slick enough or lucky enough to avoid ever getting brought in, which seemed to him to be a free pass to get wilder and wilder. The only thing he could think of doing with his time was either steal shit or smoke shit or drink shit, because otherwise he was stuck looking in the mirror and asking, _What can I do?_ and the answer, _Nothing, Trav._

It got worse and worse. Pops practically washed his hands of him when he was sixteen – he was trying to make the fourth marriage work, and Travis coming over high as a kite and smashing up the house didn't really help things. His mother was either too out of it or too overwhelmed to do anything with him, and it was easier to just try to get from one day to the next without thinking at all.

The big break didn't feel like it at the time. He was seventeen, and he was high, and the best thing to do on that Saturday seemed to be 'join up with a bunch of slightly familiar kids and try to swipe a car out of some municipal parking lot.' He was lookout, which probably saved him, because he never went near the car, but he couldn't run fast enough when the sirens started, and he wound up being hauled down to the station.

He spent six hours sitting there, pissed off that his fucking Saturday was ruined, and gave yes and no answers in between shooting his mouth off. It was fucking boiling in that room, he remembers, and it stunk of piss and puke and old coffee.

The sergeant doing the questioning didn't seem to want to be there either. He had teeth stained yellow with cigarettes and coffee, dark bloodshot eyes. At one point he left Travis alone in the room, long enough for him to start to get scared, and when he came back in he sat down heavily across from Travis, lit another cigarette, and said, "Your mother's here."

"Fucking great," Travis said. "Can I go now?"

"One more question," the sergeant said. "You answer one more question and you can go."

"I ain't making promises."

"Fine. You're a smart kid. You're way too smart to be doing shit like this, anyway. So I figure you can answer this pretty quick. I'm going to go back outside in a minute and I'm going to see your mother, and I know she's going to want to know what's going to happen to you. So I can tell her one of two things. I can say that you're going to actually make something of yourself, or I can say that you're going to wind up in jail, and you're going to die in jail. I can tell your mother that you're going to make her proud, or I can tell her how she's going to have to bury you. So tell me, Travis. What should I tell your mother?"

The bottom of his stomach dropped out.

He remembers that he said at some point, begging almost, "There's _nothing_ for me," and the sergeant saying, "Is that how you want to live, thinking about yourself like that?"

He walked out of the station with his mother, and for the next three years he kept his head down when he passed the junkies and the dealers on the street, running between home and his shitty fry cook job as fast as he could without looking up, fighting through GED classes and community college, and the day after he turned twenty-one he enrolled in the police academy. On graduation day he walked into the academy auditorium in his uniform and his father cried like a baby.

He doesn't know if it was either a case of right place and right time or God just looking out for him. He can still look in a perp's face and see the scared, angry kid he used to be reflected back at him. Some days he wishes it would just go away, and some days it feels like all he has.

*****

He notices the smashed-in door as they're driving past the store. There are scratches on one side of the glass, and the other side is shattered. There looks like some kind of metallic object lying by the door. He starts to say something to Gabe, but Gabe must have noticed it at the same time he did, because he's already radioing in the code.

It's pitch black inside the store, but there are thumping and banging noises coming from somewhere to the left. Gabe turns on the flashlight and shines it over the walls, checking for any weird shadows, and then moves over to the office door, where the banging noises are coming from. He stands on one side of the doorway; Travis stands on the other, hand on his revolver.

"Escape routes?" Gabe asks him, under his breath, his eyes on the door.

He's been in the store before; he rifles through his memory of the office. He shakes his head.

Gabe bangs on the door. There's a muffled curse from inside. Travis says, "Police department, open up."

There's scuttling noises behind the door, a banging noise. Gabe shoots him a look, already jerking the door open. "You said no fuckin' escape routes."

"There's not, there's –" Travis gets a flash of the office, crappy fluorescent lighting – "Supply closet."

"Fuck," Gabe mutters and pushes the door open.

There's a safe on the floor of the office. It looks like it's been yanked out of the wall. There are plaster shards and splintering wood lying around it, but it's still closed. The supply closet is close enough to the door to warrant some fancy footwork. Gabe makes a shushing gesture and moves to one side of the closet. Travis stands farther back, enough to block the exit if the suspect tries to make a run for it but hopefully far enough away to avoid catching a bullet in the face if someone gets spooked.

"I can hear you in there, man," Travis says. "Make this easy on yourself, all right? Open the door, come out peaceable, I'll see what I can do for you. Don't freak out, okay? Nobody wants anybody to get hurt here. Come on out, we'll talk."

He hears the noise before he sees the door open, this weird Tarzan yell throwing the door open, and then there's a flash of silver in the air, barreling towards him. Travis goes for the revolver, pulling it up fast and shouting, "Drop the weapon, down on the ground!" and Gabe snakes out a long skinny arm and grabs the suspect around the throat, pulling his left shoulder back with the other hand and lifting him off the ground. " _Drop it,_ " Gabe says.

There's a thunking noise as something hits the floor and Gabe shoves the suspect down, grabbing his handcuffs and snarling when the suspect keeps struggling. "Motherfucker, what's this shit?"

"What'd I say?" Travis says. He takes a step and kicks the weapon out of reach; candyass little peashooter, Jesus Christ. "Pull some bullshit on me. You just got yourself an attempted assault and resisting arrest charge, son. Fuckin' stay still."

Gabe gets the cuffs on and hauls the perp off the floor. "Okay, ride time."

Later, when the perp's snarling and cursing in the back of the squad car and the scene's been secured, when the store owner's been alerted and the paperwork is done, Travis does his best impression of the weird Tarzan yell for Gabe's benefit, and Gabe almost ruptures something laughing.

*****

He gets back to his apartment at one in the morning. All he wants is a drink and something soft on the stereo, something sweet and sad. William is standing by the steps when he comes up.

"Hey," Travis says. "How's tricks?"

William gives him a look. He's done something with his hair, maybe stuck some shit in it so it feathers around his face. "Evening to you too, Officer."

"You got some nerve," Travis says. "What you been up to tonight, anyway?"

"Nothin'," William says. "Nothing you need to know about, anyway." He tosses his head, aiming for an air of haughty disdain, but can't quite pull it off.

He's got something on his face, cheap CVS foundation that doesn't really match his skin. It looks like he just slapped it on. There are some ugly-looking shadows over the curve of his cheekbone, and he's handled enough domestics to know when someone's trying to hide a bruise.

"Who the fuck did that to you?" he asks, and it comes out sharp, too fast. William flinches and then yanks at the sleeves of his shirt, pulling the ends over his thumbs.

"What? I don't know what you're talking about."

"Shitty makeup job, baby boy," Travis says. "You all right?"

William just looks at him, and he sees something there, on the edge. He looks like he wants to talk, but then he pulls it back.

"I just don't know much about makeup, that's why it looks so bad," William says. He pulls at his sleeves. "It's not a big deal, anyway."

He's seen this way too many times. He could shrug and let William go, because he's off duty and William's not going to listen to whatever the fuck he says, anyway, and he should probably do that. He should just let it go.

"People who do that?" Travis says. "Not good people."

"It's not a big deal."

"William –"

William shakes his head. He pulls at his sleeves again. "I've had worse. I played sports. I used to. Played through the pain, you know?"

"There's a big difference between no crying in baseball and some fuckface beating you up because they think they can."

"Look, I'm not saying the metaphor's perfect or anything, but –"

"You keep yanking at your sleeves. Your arms fucked up too?"

" _No._ Look, I don't – it was - I'm a very good judge of character," William says. He stabs the railing with a long finger for emphasis. "I'm a _very_ good judge of character."

"I'm sure you are," Travis says.

"I just made a bad choice. I'm allowed to make bad choices sometimes."

"So it's your fault this happened?"

William takes a ragged breath. "Fuck it. Fuck it, I don't care. I'm leaving, you win."

"William," he says, and oh, God, this is not good, but what the hell. "William."

" _What?_ "

"Want to sit down and chill out for a minute?" Travis says. "How long you been on your feet, anyway?"

"I haven't – I wasn't –" William stares at the ground. "I'm so tired."

"C'mon," Travis says. "Sit. Take a break."

William looks up at him. After a minute he comes and sits at the bottom of the stairs, curled into a miserable, ashamed little ball, and Travis can't help himself. He kneels down and touches William's back, carefully, because he's not sure just how badly off William is. He feels William shudder and starts to take his hand away, but then William's shoulders unknot themselves and he doesn't seem to pull away, so Travis just leaves his hand there.

"I'm okay," William says, forehead touching his knees, voice muffled.

"Yeah," Travis says. "You're okay."

*****

"Define too close," he says to Gabe, apropos of nothing.

Gabe gives him the _what the fuck_ look. "I can't move over any further, man."

"No, here's the thing, like…" He stops to wonder what the thing is. He doesn't really know. "You think you ever stop doing your job? Like, when you go home or whatever? I know you're supposed to leave everything at work, but…"

"You're talking to the wrong guy about that," Gabe says. "The second Mrs. Saporta used to get pissed off that I wouldn't stop talking shop at dinner. Said I was like a machine."

"Yeah," Travis says. He knows he's trying to talk to Gabe about something, something important, but it's been a pretty fucking long time since he even tried to think seriously about being a cop and just being Travis, and he's not sure he's good at it.

"What's going on with you?" Gabe asks. "What is it?"

"I just don't want to fuck things up," Travis says.

*****

The thing about the job is that it all becomes routine after a while. His days seem to repeat themselves in a series of B&Es and D&Ds and assault, with the same faces appearing again and again, until even the adrenaline rushes start to feel familiar.

Sometimes that trips him up.

They get a call for a possible domestic disturbance at an address they've gone to a couple of times before. Dispatch says something about neighbors hearing screaming and cursing from the apartment.

"Rebecca's at it again," Gabe says, and reaches for the transmitter. "Unit responding."

There isn't any screaming when they get in the building, or when they get to the door. Gabe knocks and calls, "Police department," but there's nothing then either.

"Not this shit again," Gabe says, and knocks harder. On the third rap, the door drifts open on its own.

The smell hits Travis first, sweetish and chemical. He can see a glass pipe lying on the floor and immediately braces himself, but he doesn't hear any other activity going on, and the only other person he can see is her.

She's sitting on the floor of the apartment, rocking her head back and forth. There's an open vial of pills next to her, reddish smeary prints on the plastic.

"Damn," Travis says. "Should –"

She looks up at them through blurry eyes and croaks something that doesn't make sense, tries to get up and falls. Her face is flecked with spatter.

"We're going to need an ambulance," Gabe says. "Rebecca, hey. It's Officer Saporta. What've you been doing, sweetheart?"

Travis radios in the 10-47 while Gabe tries to rouse her. "I'll secure the scene."

"Scream if you need me," Gabe says. "Rebecca, what'd you take?"

There are some bloody footprints leading from the other room, and he listens for someone breathing or crying or something, but there's nothing. He keeps the revolver at hand anyway.

There isn't any spatter on the walls of the bedroom, none on the sheets of the bed. He looks over at the right corner of the room, towards the crib, and takes a deep breath.

There's a knife lying on the floor by one of the crib's legs. The sheets inside are covered a mixture of bright red and almost black, soaked through the heather-colored cotton. There's a small lump of blanket in the corner, cuts in the fabric.

He checks it knowing what's there, pulls the blanket aside to check for a heartbeat, a pulse, and doesn't find any. He radios in for the coroner.

He walks back out. Gabe has her almost responsive, mumbling and nodding at him as he holds her shoulders. "Gabe," Travis says, and his voice sounds strange. He clears his throat.

Gabe looks up at him. He doesn't move, but she must sense something change, because she opens her eyes. Travis watches little lights forming in her pupils through the haze, some sort of recognition.

He hears the ambulance sirens outside just as she starts to scream.

By the time the detective shows up, she's been taken away, trying to claw herself and still screaming. He gives the report to the detective; Gabe's sitting in the squad car, staring at nothing. There are still four hours left in the shift.

When they get back to the station to file the paperwork, the story's already been spread around. Travis can feel everyone's eyes on him, looks saying _I've been there_ or _Could that happen on my watch_? When everything gets filed, it's late enough so that his lieutenant lets them go.

Travis goes into the locker room to change. Gabe sits on the bench, his elbows on his knees, and doesn't say anything, like he hasn't said anything all night.

"Gabe," he says, trying to get something so he knows he still exists. "Hey."

"It's fucking easier," Gabe says. "If you don't – I don't know why I fucking have to feel, I fucking –"

"Yeah," he says. "Yeah, I know."

Gabe shoves himself off the bench and walks out.

He makes it home. He sees William by the stairs but he's not in the mood to chat, so he just gives him a nod and takes the stairs to the front door, fumbling in his pocket for his keys.

"Did you get the bad guy?" William asks.

By now he knows the difference between William being a wiseass and William asking a question. He turns around and looks at William at the bottom of the stairs, looking back at him.

"No," he says. "No, I don't think we did."

"I'm sorry."

"It doesn't matter." He can't find his keys.

"Okay," William says, and then, softly, "Take care, Travis."

What he can't really explain is how he can go through his days filled with people too scared or too desperate or too damn dumb to keep from destroying themselves, and he could be fine, he could do his job, and all it takes is William with his crooked teeth and soft voice saying his name to make him want to cry. He can't find his keys. He needs to find his fucking keys _right fucking now_. He almost throws the door open in the rush to get inside, back to his apartment and safety.

*****

He gets up the next day and goes to do it all over again. It gets easier to pretend the more he does it, the more he acts like everything is okay with him. Everything, eventually, becomes something he keeps inside and tries not to think about.

Still, the next time he sees William, he says, "Look, I'm sorry about that other time. Shitty day, you know?"

William shrugs and says, "Can't be the easiest job in the world."

"Sometimes it is."

"If you're good at it, maybe."

"It's easier if you suck at it. Don't have to work as hard."

"You look like you're good at your job," William says.

He looks at William, considering. William nervously tugs at his hair. "You're going to tell me that I look pretty bad at mine, right, Travis?"

"Yeah," Travis says. "And it fuckin' worries me."

William smiles. "I've been pretty bad at a lot of things. Why should this be different?"

 _Because you're you_ , Travis almost says, but he doesn't.

*****

He comes home to the apartment to find his answering machine light blinking. He looks at it for a minute while he's pouring a drink. The only people who call him at home are telemarketers, and he thinks he's just going to erase it, but then he hits the play button and the voice that comes out of it makes him draw his breath in.

"Travis?" Matt's voice is soft and sleepy even now, through the machine distortion and ten years gone past. "Uh, it's Matt. McGinley, from Geneva? I guess you're not home? Your mom gave me this number. I guess it's been a while. Uh, I'm still around. Don't know how that happened." He laughs nervously, and the machine crackles. "Your mom says you're doing really good. I, uh, I guess I'm running out of time. I wanted to see what you've been doing. Old times. That's not the real reason I'm calling."

Matty never did know how to just leave a damn message.

"I don't know how we both made it," Matt says. "It was touch and go for a while with me. But that's – I thought maybe you'd like to come up here this summer. For a few days. I guess – I met this girl, Trav. She's great. I don't know how that happened. Travis," he says, "Travis, I'm getting married. Travis, we're going to have a baby. I thought – maybe you'd like to come to the wedding? Catch up on old times? Anyway, my number is –"

Travis stares at the answering machine. He has no idea what to do.

He remembered Matt as a skinny kid with big sad eyes, a couple years younger than he was but way wiser. They used to cut school and spend the day either stoned out of their minds or swiping stuff from the 7-11 up the street just because they could, waiting for the days to end.

He lost track of Matt when he joined the academy. He'd lost track of practically everyone back home. It wasn't really on purpose; it was just that every time he called or came back, he'd hear about someone else who'd died or OD'd or gone to jail, and it got so that he couldn't focus on what he was meant to be doing, thinking of everyone he used to know.

Travis tries to imagine meeting him again, tries to imagine what to say when Matt asks what he's been doing. _I try my best to stop the bad things in the world? I see a lot of people who are just like you and I used to be, Matty? Sometimes I try to save the day, and it doesn't work? I come home to an empty apartment and drink too much?_

He looks at the machine some more. He thinks about replaying the message, but he doesn't. He picks his head up and stares at the walls of the apartment, and closes his eyes.

*****

He hasn't seen William for a few nights. He doesn't know if he's working somewhere with more opportunity, or if something's happened to him, or if he's just gone home to Chicago. He should really be hoping that William went home to Chicago.

Instead, he gets home one night and he's halfway through the door when he sees William walking down the street towards him, and it feels like the knot in his stomach finally untwists itself. William waves at him; he waves back but he's already started opening the door and feels like he needs to follow through, so he just goes inside.

He gets in front of his door and starts to open it. He starts to think what he's going to do until he has to go to work the next day. He thinks about what he's going to do the day after that. And the day after and the day after, all in a rush of unrelenting sameness.

"Oh, fuck it," he says, and turns around.

William is picking at his nails when he comes outside. He looks up and says, "Going out?"

"Do you drink coffee?" Travis says.

"What?"

"Coffee. You know, the drink. Do you drink tea?" He's gotten out of practice at this, and he has to force his mouth to keep the words from falling apart. "Fuckin'… _cocoa_?"

"Tea," William says hesitantly. "Coffee sometimes."

"Want to get a cup of…whatever you want?"

William shifts from one foot to another. He's got a look that probably says _if this is entrapment, I'll be pissed_.

"There's a place like a block away," Travis says. "Super bright lights. Lots of people."

"Yeah," William says. "Okay, great."

William keeps his hands shoved in his pockets while they're walking towards the coffee shop, He glances at Travis every now and then, like he's trying to force himself to be suspicious. It's pretty much the same way he's always been – wanting to trust but knowing he shouldn't.

"I don't want you coming around the apartment anymore," Travis blurts out.

William stops dead in his tracks. He takes his hands out of his pockets. "I – oh," he says. The hurt and resignation is mapped out across his face. "Oh."

 _Travie, you're a dumbass._. "No, no, not like that," he says. "Like, not to work. Don't work around the apartment anymore, okay?"

"I don't –"

"Yeah, yeah, you don't work. Just – you know." He suddenly feels about twelve years old, trying to act like a grownup. "I can't stop you from working wherever, you know. I just – I don't want something to happen to you. I don't want something to happen to you and know I could have done something. You keep coming here to work? Something's going to happen."

"I'm careful."

"Doesn't matter how careful you are. Shit's unpredictable. But maybe –" Twelve years old and asking for a date to the middle school dance. "Maybe you want to just hang out for a while?"

"You're asking me to c-come over and hang out with you?"

"I'm not all that interesting," Travis says. "Come over, watch TV, talk about shit, I don't know. Nothing fancy, unless I get lucky and win Pick 10."

"You lead a glamorous life," William says.

"I keep weird hours and I have simple dreams. I live in Apartment 3E," he says. "Take it or leave it."

William stares at him. "I could – Travis, I could be some crazy guy. You don't know –"

"I know you're not stupid," Travis says. "And you know I'm not stupid. Which means you're not going to try to fuck me over. And, no offense, but you don't look like you have the lack of conscience for it."

"I don't really know how to hang out," William says. "I like to have a purpose, you know –"

"Let me know, then. I'll see what I can do."

"Are you sure about this?" William stares at him, searching his face. "You just want to, like, see me?"

"Pretty much," Travis says. "I mean, you don't have to. I'm just Travis asking, you know?"

"I, uh. Uh." He thinks William's going to continue, but he doesn't. He gets up on tiptoe, even though he's only an inch or two shorter than Travis, and presses long fingers against his shoulder and kisses Travis' cheek. It's careful and almost shy, cool soft lips brushing against his skin, and then William pulls back. He looks at the ground, biting his lip, tucking his hair behind his ear. He's actually blushing.

"You've been waiting to do that, haven't you," Travis says.

"Uh. I don't know. Maybe a little."

"The McCoy charm," Travis says. "Gets them every time."

"Shut up," William mumbles, but he's smiling. "You'll have to excuse me, okay, I'm new at this kind of thing." And then he kisses Travis for real.

When William pulls away, Travis feels unsure and exhilarated, waiting for what's going to happen next. William says, "Want to keep walking?"

"Yeah," Travis says. "Yeah, let's try that."

William touches his shoulder and starts moving forward. Travis follows him into the bright city lights. He thinks that neither of them know where they're going, probably.

He thinks that he's never felt more like himself.


End file.
